Activism Tip: Start an Animal-Related Reading Group

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Why are we here on care2.com? Because we all want to make the world a better place. So here’s a tip on how to build a stronger animal movement: start an animal-related reading group in your neighborhood or community. It’s easy and a fun way to meet new people while also helping animals. You can even make it a weekly or bi-weekly vegan potluck event. Sound fun?

There are many structural and systematic problems for animals, like factory farming and animal testing. And for the most part, it is cultural change that will solve these problems. We need to get people to change habits and create new lifestyles that are more sustainable, animal-friendly and socially just. Animals in factory farms desperately need us to go vegan and stop buying products that are tested on animals. It’s true that tackling a problem as huge as ending factory farming and creating widespread social change can be intimidating, but there are lots of small things we can to put a dent in this monumental problem. I’ve said it before, but I am a big fan of giving out leaflets to raise awareness and encourage people to help animals. But when you leaflet you don’t get a chance to work with people to develop a thorough understanding of animal issues.

Recently I started an animal-related reading group in my hometown of Worcester, Massachusetts. It’s called the Animal Liberation Theory & Action reading group. After getting together a group of a little over a dozen people, we went through a list of about 10 animal-related books and chose 4 to read and discuss over the next 8 weeks. These books, along with a couple of films, will paint a picture of a diverse animal movement using a diversity of tactics to improve the lives of animals. We’ll talk about animal abuse and its link to other aspects of the social justice movement, how animal exploitation relates to injustices of the past, how we can take action to end animal abuse, along with other topics.

If you’re interested in keeping up-to-date on the reading group, check my blog at VegWorcester.com/blog/. I’ll be writing about the group every week for the next 2 months. If you want put together an animal-related reading group of your own, feel free to download my reading list (pdf) as a starting point. I recommend you choose 3 or 4 books. We’re taking 8 weeks, so make sure you give your group enough time to talk about each book.

What do you think? Would you join a reading group like this in your home town?